Fragments: Type of narrator

[1] This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's
resolution can achieve.
If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of
suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from
the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have
claimed their share of the public attention in a Court of Justice.
But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long
purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might
once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance,
from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence.
When the writer of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright by name) happens to be
more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe
them in his own person. When his experience fails, he will retire from the position of
narrator; and his task will be continued, from the point at which he has left it off, by
other persons who can speak to the circumstances under notice from their own
knowledge, just as clearly and positively as he has spoken before them.
Thus, the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an
offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witnesswith the same
object, in both cases, to present the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible
aspect; and to trace the course of one complete series of events, by making the persons
who have been most closely connected with them, at each successive stage, relate their
own experience, word for word.
Let Walter Hartright, teacher of drawing, aged twenty-eight years, be heard first.
[From Wilkie Collins The Woman in White (1859-60)]
[2] 1801.I have just returned from a visit to my landlordthe solitary neighbour that
I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not
believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of
society. A perfect misanthropists heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable
pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my
heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under
their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous
resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.
Mr. Heathcliff? I said.
A nod was the answer.
Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling as soon as
possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my
perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you
had had some thoughts
Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir, he interrupted, wincing. I should not allow any
one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder itwalk in! [From Emily Bronts
Wuthering Heights (1847)]
Fragments: Type of narrator
[3] The man with a moustache sweeps me up in his arms and bangs me down upon the
balustrade. A huge puff of smoke floats out of his mouth. As if he were a dragon. There
is a chain hanging from a pin only a few inches from my nose.
Dragon, Gold.
Stand to attention when youre addressing me, my girl. He peers into my eyeballs. I
see that his eyes are grey, but flecked with gold. [From Patricia Dunckers James
Miranda Barry (1999)]
[4] She was open, ardent, and not in the least self-admiring; indeed, it was pretty to see
how her imagination adorned her sister Celia with attractions altogether superior to her
own, and if any gentleman appeared to come to the Grange from some other motive
than that of seeing Mr. Brooke, she concluded that he must be in love with Celia: Sir
James Chettam, for example, whom she constantly considered from Celia's point of
view, inwardly debating whether it would be good for Celia to accept him. That he
should be regarded as a suitor to herself would have seemed to her a ridiculous
irrelevance. Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very
childlike ideas about marriage. She felt sure that she would have accepted the judicious
Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched mistake he made in
matrimony; or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the other great
men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable
handsome baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed
uncertainty,how could he affect her as a lover? The really delightful marriage must be
that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you
wished it. [From George Eliots Middlemarch (1871-72)]
(5) Other opportunities of making her observations could not fail to occur. Anne had
soon been in company with all the four together often enough to have an opinion,
though too wise to acknowledge as much at home, where she knew it would have
satisfied neither husband nor wife; for while she considered Louisa to be rather the
favourite, she could not but think, as far as she might dare to judge from memory and
experience, that Captain Wentworth was not in love with either. They were more in love
with him; yet there it was not love. It was a little fever of admiration; but it might,
probably must, end in love with some. Charles Hayter seemed aware of being slighted,
and yet Henrietta had sometimes the air of being divided between them. Anne longed
for the power of representing to them all what they were about, and of pointing out
some of the evils they were exposing themselves to. She did not attribute guile to any. It
was the highest satisfaction to her to believe Captain Wentworth not in the least aware
of the pain he was occasioning. There was no triumph, no pitiful triumph in his manner.
He had, probably, never heard, and never thought of any claims of Charles Hayter. He
was only wrong in accepting the attentions (for accepting must be the word) of two
young women at once. [From Jane Austens Persuasion (1818)]